Unfortunately, concern over car and truck theft continues to increase. Thieves seem to work tirelessly to conjure up methods of bypassing factory-installed security systems. Our experience has shown that while a GPS-based tracking system might not prevent vehicle theft, it is your only hope of recovering your vehicle. Let’s look at geofence and location-based alerts to understand how they can help with day-to-day vehicle use and during those times when criminals have dragged your pride and joy away with a tow truck.

What Is a GPS-Based Tracking System?

When discussing a tracking system, we refer to something more elaborate than an Apple AirTag, a Tile, a Samsung SmartTag, or a Chipolo. While these devices are great for finding your keys, tracking a package, an unplanned world tour, or your luggage, they aren’t the best solution for helping you find your vehicle.

A professional-grade tracking solution combines three essential parts. First, there is a cellular data radio. This is the part of your smartphone that lets you surf the Internet. It works like your cable modem at home to send data to the Internet. Instead of wires, it sends the information wirelessly to a cell tower. Data to and from the cell tower is connected to the Internet.

Second, the tracking device will have a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receiver. The Global Positioning System (GPS) is North America’s most commonly discussed system. However, other similar systems are in use. GLONASS, BeiDou, and Galileo are some of the different systems used worldwide. They all work the same way to allow the receiver to pinpoint a location, elevation, and even direction of travel.

Finally, a microcomputer chip takes data from the GNSS receiver and sends it to a data server using the cellular modem.

How Do Vehicle Tracking Systems Work?

Let’s say you’ve had a local specialty mobile enhancement retailer install a tracking system in your car or truck. If you want to know where your vehicle is, you’ll tap a button on a smartphone app or a website. That software will send a position request to the microcomputer in the tracking system over the Internet and cellular data network. The microcomputer will request the location information from the GNSS receiver and then send that back to the application you use. The application will display the vehicle’s location on a map service like Google Maps.

Some more elaborate tracking systems will have software that pushes information to your smartphone. For example, the Drone system from Firstech, the company that manufactures Compustar remote car starters, will notify the owner if the vehicle moves without the doors being unlocked. This could indicate someone attempting to tow the vehicle.

Location-Based Alerts

To this point, we’ve talked about the operation of tracking systems. However, the software these devices integrate with is crucial to the convenience and protection they offer. This leads us to a discussion of location-based alerts. For example, let’s say you are the parents of a teenager borrowing a family vehicle. If they can use the car to drive to school or work, you could use the tracking software to set up an alert around those geographic locations. You’ll receive an alert on your smartphone when the vehicle arrives at or leaves that area.

Location Alert Configuration Options

Depending on the brand of tracking system you are using, you may be able to define whether you receive an alert when the vehicle enters or exits a specific area. If you own, operate, or manage a fleet of vehicles and need to know when one is near a particular location, you can create a geofence around a parking lot. The image below shows a large parking lot outlined with a polygonal geofence. You could use this information to know when a driver left and returned in a company-owned vehicle.

A secondary benefit of a geofence, like what we’ve shown above, is the ability to monitor the operation of company-owned vehicles after work hours. For example, if you own a service company and your staff finishes work at 6 p.m., the vans should remain in your parking lot until at least 7:30 the following morning. If you’ve created a geofence around your facility, and a van leaves at 3 a.m., you’ll get a notification on your smartphone within a few seconds. There could be a legitimate emergency service call or someone stealing the vehicle.

Advanced Safety Features

Tracking systems can provide more than location-based information for corporate applications. Large corporations spend significant amounts of money on insurance each year. Many studies have proven that employees drive better when they know they are being monitored. Modern tracking systems can record vehicle speed and send a warning if a threshold is exceeded. More advanced systems might include an accelerometer or software to monitor the vehicle for abrupt acceleration, braking, or even cornering too quickly.

Battery Backup for Premium Protection

Sadly, car thieves are clever these days. When they steal a car, they often park it in a public lot a few cities away. If the vehicle is still there after a few days, the chances of it having a tracking system are slim. This saves them the time and hassle of searching through the vehicle for a tracking system.

Another method they use is to disconnect the battery. This is common if the vehicle will be shipped out of the country or if the thieves want to tow it somewhere so they can look for tracking systems or program new keys. A tracking system usually won’t work when the battery is disconnected. However, many tracking systems include a built-in backup battery. Most of these systems send a notification when the battery is disconnected and continue to provide updates for at least three or four hours.

Protect Your Vehicle With a Premium Tracking System Today!

While it’s logical to worry about thieves stealing luxury models like Lexus, BMW, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Range Rover, or Porsche, the reality is that an F-150, Silverado, Civic, CR-V, Ram 1500, Sonata, or Highlander are much more likely candidates for auto theft. Even if you’ve taken precautions like locking the vehicle in the garage and blocking it with a less tempting car, determined thieves always watch for opportunities to take your pride and joy.

A vehicle tracking system that’s appropriately integrated into the vehicle provides you with almost the only chance of recovering your car or truck. Even then, you need to act promptly and get the authorities involved. Drop by a local specialty mobile enhancement retailer today to find out what tracking solutions are available to keep tabs on and add convenience to your vehicle.

This article is written and produced by the team at www.BestCarAudio.com. Reproduction or use of any kind is prohibited without the express written permission of 1sixty8 media.

Never in a million years did we think that the internet would debate the appropriate amount of time that’s ideal for a remote starter to warm up a car. Some folks believe that even a minute is too much, and others want the interior to be toasty and warm and are willing to let the vehicle idle for 15, 20 or even 30 minutes. Let’s talk about the physics of cold engine starting and why a little warm-up time can help get you on the road faster.

Engine Oil Science

There is a myth that whenever you start your car or truck, you inflict serious damage to the bearings, cylinder walls and piston rings because oil isn’t flowing. Modern engine oils are designed with adequate viscosity (thickness) and surface tension so they don’t completely drain into the oil pan when your car sits overnight or for a few days. Think of the fingerprints you leave on a stainless-steel fridge door. They don’t evaporate. That’s because the oils on our skin stick to the surface. The same applies to engine parts. If you want to test this, put a drop of cooking oil on your finger and touch a stainless appliance. That spot will be there until you clean it off with a degreaser.

If you put the car away for the winter and nothing moves for several months, there will be a bit of extra wear during the first start in the spring. However, so long as you drive your vehicle regularly, accelerated wear from starting isn’t an issue.

Modern engine oils include viscosity modifiers. An oil like 5W30 acts like a 5-weight oil at cold temperatures and a 30-weight oil when warm. The lower viscosity when cold helps it to flow better when it’s frigid outside. The W in the 5W30 stands for Winter. We got an email from a reader in mid-January informing us it was 49 below zero Fahrenheit near Edmonton, Alberta. It was 25 Fahrenheit in Anchorage! When it’s this cold, any fluid will have difficulty flowing. This doesn’t mean that you can’t drive your vehicle. However, it will take a while for the engine to warm up.

Ultimately, you’ll have to start your vehicle at some point if you want to go to work. So, a remote starter will give the engine a head-start in warming things up.

Transmission and Differential Warm-Up

Another argument against prolonged warm-up time is that the transmission and differential aren’t warming when idling. In the case of the differential, gear oil is usually 75W90 or similar in viscosity. After just a few revolutions of the driveshaft, every part in the differential will have a thorough coating. Just as with the engine, the lubricants don’t drain dry overnight or even after sitting for a few days or weeks. The oil coats the gear surfaces and the roller bearings. A colder, thicker oil provides more protection between gear surfaces. The only drawback to the differential being cold is that it takes more energy for the ring gear to move through the oil in the bottom of the case.

Most modern vehicles have a transmission cooler integrated into the radiator. Fluid lines from the transmission run up to connections in the radiator. A small heat exchanger might be in front of or behind the main core or a dedicated cooling channel and fins integrated between the engine coolant lines. Ultimately, once your engine is warm and coolant passes through the radiator, that speeds up the process of warming the transmission.

So if you don’t warm up your vehicle significantly, neither the engine nor the transmission will be warm. If you let the engine idle for a while, both will be warm. Worrying about one and not the other isn’t an argument against using a remote car starter.

Cold-Weather Driving

If it’s 40 below, you aren’t going to go outside, start your vehicle, then put your foot to the floor and drive off like Roscoe chasing Bo and Luke Duke. On the other hand, you don’t need to let your vehicle idle for so long that every fluid in every system is up to full operating temperature. The latter is a waste of fuel since it might take 10, 15 or even 30 minutes. Vehicles with physically larger engines take longer to warm up. A big V-8 engine has much more mass to bring up to temperature than a 1.5-liter four-cylinder. Idling is the slowest way to warm an engine. It’s not doing much work, so less heat is produced.

Suggestions for Engine Warm-Up Time

Here are our suggestions for an ideal minimum warm-up time for your car or truck. Whether you’re using a professionally installed remote car starter or are just sitting in the vehicle in your driveway, our benchmark for a minimum warm-up time is to wait for the engine idle speed to drop. When you start a fuel-injected car from cold, it typically idles between 1,200 and 1,400 rpm. The idle speed when warm might be 500 to 900 rpm. The coolant temperature sensors in the engine directly control the idle speed.

Go to your car or truck on a cold morning, hop in and start the engine. Listen to the engine speed if your vehicle doesn’t have a tachometer on the dash. Note how long it takes for the speed to start slowing down. This time can vary from five or 10 seconds on a warm day to a few minutes on a cold day. The speed dropping is a sign of some heat in the engine. Whatever the time it took is a perfect time to let your remote starter warm up your engine.

For us, we usually remote-start our vehicles just before getting ready to head out. We still need to put our shoes or boots on, get our coats on, and grab our keys, wallet or purse, and laptop bag. If it snowed, then we can brush off the vehicle and scrape the windows. Most of us have the rear window defroster, heated seats and heated steering wheel controls integrated into our remote starters. They’ll have time to warm things up if it’s below freezing. This is more than enough time for the engine to warm up. You can hop in and drive off.

As always, be gentle with throttle inputs and try to keep the engine speed down until the engine is at full operating temperature. Exerting extreme force on the engine when cold isn’t ideal. The gap between bearings and journals won’t have stabilized yet. These gaps, measured in the thousandths of inches, are small but are critical to maintaining a proper fluid (oil) film. Letting the engine warm up ensures that the appropriate film thickness is present for adequate wear protection.

Tips For Cold Weather Engine Protection

Here are a few tips to make starting your car or truck on a cold winter morning easier and more reliable. First and foremost, if you haven’t already, switch to a synthetic oil at your next oil change. Even with the same viscosity ratings, synthetic oils flow better than conventional oils at low temperatures. Do you want a thick syrup in your engine or a fluid that will provide excellent protection?

Make sure your battery has a complete charge. We’ve talked about battery maintenance at length. Invest in an intelligent charger to keep your battery topped up for those cold winter morning starts. Every battery loses some ability to deliver current when cold, so keeping yours charged and in good health is crucial. Proper maintenance with biannual or quarterly reconditioning will dramatically extend the battery’s life and prevent you from being stranded.

Turn off any electrical accessory you don’t need in your vehicle. Most modern vehicles have a computer called the Body Control Module that shuts down things like the heater motor or radio when you crank the engine. However, in many cases, some of these items are left on for convenience. If it will be very cold out, turn off everything you can think of when you park the car. Turn off automatic headlights, the radio and so on. This will reduce the draw on the battery when it’s trying to crank the engine. If a local specialty mobile enhancement retailer has added heated seats, make sure they’re off while the engine is cranking.

If it gets extremely cold where you live, invest in a block heater for your car or truck. These small heating elements are installed in the engine block and warm the coolant. You can use a timer to turn the heater on a few hours before starting the vehicle. Likewise, a battery warmer might be a good investment if it’s frigid. A car dealership can often add a block heater to your vehicle. Remember to use a heavy-gauge extension cord with the heater to optimize its performance.

Make sure you have a set of good-quality jumper cables. If you have trouble starting the vehicle or need to help someone else, good cables (4 AWG or thicker) that are nice and long (20 feet) make jumping a dead battery much easier. Most importantly, if your battery has died, you must recharge it properly. This means more than running the engine for a few minutes. Invest in or borrow a high-quality battery charger with a desulfation or reconditioning mode and let it run a complete cycle on the battery. It should take eight to 12 hours to charge a completely dead battery back to its full capacity. The desulfation feature will stir the chemistry in the battery and restore or improve its performance.

Warming Up Your Car Adds Comfort

So what’s the bottom line on how long you should let your car warm up? Technically, a minute or two will be beneficial and allow the parts in the engine to build up some temperature. Do you need to warm your car for 15 minutes? We don’t think so. That’s quite a while, and you could run into trouble with anti-idling laws in your jurisdiction. When it’s time to add some comfort to your vehicle on a cold winter morning, drop by a local specialty mobile enhancement retailer and ask them about having a remote starter installed in your vehicle. Your cold hands will thank you for it!

This article is written and produced by the team at www.BestCarAudio.com. Reproduction or use of any kind is prohibited without the express written permission of 1sixty8 media.